Despite challenging times for venture capital firms looking to reload the cannons, London’s Dawn Capital today announces the raise of $700 million; $620 million will be channeled to its dedicated early-sate B2B software fund, with $80 million allotted to a follow-on fund.
The firm’s primary $620 million vehicle, Dawn V, will support growing European B2B software firms with initial tickets ranging from $10 million to $40 million at Series A or Series B stages.
The $80 million follow-on fund, Dawn Opportunities III, will provide further support, Series C stage and onwards, for outstanding portfolio companies, meaning the firm can go the distance from Series A through exit.
“Dawn is an invaluable partner to have on your side. The firm has brought huge value and insights to our business, and the team is deeply invested in our success at all levels.” - Quantexa founder and CEO Vishal Marria.
The firm says that 50 percent of commitments have been raised from existing LPs and 50 percent from new investors hailing from across the US, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and consist, naturally, of sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, endowments, funds of funds, family offices and high net-worth individuals, all investing alongside a number of Dawn's portfolio founders.
The firm has already made three investments from the new fund in Dublin-based tax compliance platform Fonoa, embedded insurance platform, Cover Genius, and financial institution legacy systems updater, FlowX.AI.
Launched in 2007, Dawn has now raised over $2 billion from global investors and backed more than 80 companies founded across 16 European countries.
Amongst the firm’s portfolio: Mimecast (formerly NASDAQ-listed, taken private by Permira in a $5.8 billion transaction), iZettle (sold to PayPal for $2.2 billion cash), Tink (purchased by Visa for $2.0 billion), LeanIX (recently acquired by SAP), and currently established unicorns Collibra, Dataiku and Quantexa.
On the new fund, Dawn Capital co-founder and general partner Haakon Overli shared:
“Over the last 18 months, we have all witnessed the challenging macro environment. We founded Dawn to support founders building global B2B software leaders from Europe, and this ethos has not changed. We firmly believe it is a great point in the cycle to be investing and see the opportunity in Europe only increasing.
“Our two decades of experience have shown us that companies forged in challenging times are forced to deliver even more value, with compelling propositions and deep-rooted resilience.”
Dawn Capital co-founder and general partner Norman Fiore added:
“We are at the very beginning of another major technology shift. As our entrepreneurs like to remind us, AI has been around for a long time. The change today is that AI has pushed its way from the engineering teams into the boardroom. Its coming prevalence makes it both an investment area in itself as well as a disruptor to every software category we’ve been investing in since we founded Dawn. We were therefore determined to raise funds of commensurate scale to the enormous opportunity before us.”
Lead image: The Dawn Capital team via Dawn Capital. Photo: Uncredited.
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